Tag Archives: Wollumbin Johnny

Australia [OZ] the ‘Great Southern Land’ was claimed in 1606, by the Dutch on the West coast and the Spanish on the East coast…..and then in 1770 it was ‘re-claimed’ due to a mucky ‘divorce’, treasonous mutiny, Religious squabbles and the lucrative slave trade legacies of the Northern Hemisphere…..for 164 years we have been denied the truth due to deliberate alteration of cartographic records – MAPS…It’s the missing link to the truth of what really happened in OZ…and, here’s my [short] version of how it happened….in 3416 words…and as always, there is a nice cultural surprise at the end….but please read the info first…its important…thanx

Port Curtis near Gladstone Queensland was established as a colony by the Portuguese in 1606 – on the continent they named Terre Australe Du S Espirit

Marriage is a sacred contract and an age old means of alliance and tenure of nations globally…..and, sometime marriages break down….and when they do, assets must be divided….and this, often, leads to WAR….Australia and its people were an asset…a land of wealth and toil…toil, as in SLAVES….

Slavery was abolished in British Colonies in 1834, but slaves were ‘apprenticed’ until 1838… this is a horrible legacy we share with many other Southern Hemisphere nations….but it was a war that took place in 1718 that would seal the fate of Australia as a Commonwealth Nation…but that war was not on Australian soil…and the evidence of why and how it happened was buried in a mountain….a mountain of cartographic geospatial paperwork…

Now, we all know that the “Alteration of Traditional Lore” by invading governance has occurred globally….Conquerors kill off knowledge holders [seen as adult threats] and then they commence destroying maps, libraries and all records of the native adults that could re-surface to be used in later times as evidence to shows prior tenure of lands….The pattern usually goes on to appropriate the cultural ‘temples’ of the invaded nation, enslave adult survivors and commence reprograming the ‘orphaned’ children to forget their ancestral heritage and become compliant slaves….

We can trace this pattern in the dissemination and subsequent assimilation [or abrogation] of ancient global lore’s….much of it can be identified in the biblical texts….and it is from the biblical texts that the legal instruments regarding Laws of Land and Title to Land have been developed….Laws that ‘validate’ tenure, and conveniently absolve the souls of those who commit the dirty deeds….

A further process of classic ‘divide and conquer’ tactics is to outlaw the use of ancestral language and replace it with the language of the conqueror – by indoctrinating the child survivors….and this too is part of ‘validating’ tenure….for Lore Land and Language are linked…So, as each ancestral land and culture are ‘claimed’ and the conquered either killed or enslaved, the conquerors then busy themselves in rewriting cartographic records [maps] – renaming places and obliterating languages associated with specific locations of the original people – they do this as quickly as they can….These processes I refer to as being ‘geospatial alterations’ ….and this type of modus operando process can be traced all the way back to the Roman invasions of Egypt…

First letter from the Queen’s office at Buckingham palace, regarding the Ngarakbal people

I began learning about this stuff by default….I was a ‘helper’ for an original ancestral Australian, Mrs. Marlene Boyd – of the Ngarakbal Githabal people on Australia’s east coast…and in helping her I began to see a pattern of what appeared as geospatial alteration….our focus of attention was a sacred Ngarakbal mountain…’Wollumbin’, which had been gazetted as Mount Warning by Captain Cook… the administration were trying to have it dual named – recognise it as being a sacred site named “Wollumbin”…but that wasn’t the problem – the problem was they the administration was trying to say that the ancestral language of the location was NOT Ngarakbal, but another language from another location and another tribe ….lots of letters and meetings with departments ensured….over time a clear pattern emerged…at first it was just in Ngarakbal Githabal lands, but I quickly realised it had, and was indeed still, occurring all over Australia…but most notably [and traceably] on the east coast……So I would like to tell you a story….it’s actually His-story…no, actually it’s Her-story….and to understand how it happened in Oz we need to begin in Egypt.

The destruction of the Library of Alexandria ‘ended’ the Library of Alexandria…it was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world…..famous for having been burned, resulting in the loss of many scrolls and books, and it has become a symbol of “knowledge and culture destroyed”……..Ancient and modern sources identify four possible occasions for the partial or complete destruction of the Library of Alexandria….. Julius Caesar’s fire during his civil war in 48 BC….. the attack of Aurelian in AD 270 – 275…..the decree of Coptic Pope Theophilus in 391 AD…..and the Muslim conquest of Egypt in (or after) AD 642…..

Whilst the library was sacked…some of the records survived….most notably the maps to the treasures of the ancient world….which included the maps of the Egyptian voyages to the lands of the Red Kings – or Australia….the land of the Bird Tribes, and Birds are what the Ngarakbal Githabal call the Feathered Serpents….

Ok….Now we need to fast forward to England to the middle- ages…to the reign of Henry VIII – 1491 to 1547….Enter, the legal instrument of DIVORCE

All-righty…so…before becoming King in 1491, Henry was the Prince of Wales…..he then became, Henry VIII and he was a Roman Catholic, under the authority of the Pope in Rome – the same ‘line’ that had invaded Egypt and sacked the library of Alexandria……The Catholic Church did not recognize divorce, and Henry wanted a divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon because she could not bear him any children (specifically, male heirs)…….. He wanted to marry another young woman named Anne Boleyn…but first he needed a divorce…..so, after failing to get the Pope in Rome to give him a “papal dispensation” (which would have given him special treatment by allowing the divorce), he basically forced the Archbishop to grant him a divorce, in direct opposition to the Pope, leading to a breaking away from the Catholic Church….

By having his own Church Henry believed he had now solved his problems…. He got to marry Anne, and he saved his soul from Catholic ‘damnation’….and then he decided to behead Anne… anyway….point is regardless of Anne’s demise, the Church of England was born…..Rome was NOT happy.

So, after Henry VIII died, his son, Edward VI ruled until his death 9 years later……and before shuffling off Edward changed his will so that his cousin, Jane Grey, would become queen even though she was the 4th in line (because if not, then Mary, a staunch Roman Catholic married to the King of Spain, would succeed and reverse all Henry’s breakaway reforms)………. Poor Jane ruled for just 9 days until Edward’s sister, Mary, came and beheaded her for treason…….then, Mary ruled until her death…doing exactly what Edward feared and with great bloodshed…….. Then, Elizabeth I [I = the first] took the throne and ruled for a rich 45 years…and she also beheaded her cousin, [but] then named the cousin’s son her successor and this successor was James I ……… and he ruled England from 1603 to 1625….and it here, at this crossroads, where the invasion of Australia – and the sorry tale of the legacy of Henry’s mucky divorce – began…

It is during James I reign that Australia is ‘discovered’…. in 1606, by both Spain [Portugal] on the East and Holland [Dutch] on the West….one Catholic, one Protestant…..thanks very much Henry

Here is a brief over-view of the timeline of events……..

James I was the son of Mary Queen of Scots, so when James became King of England, he was already a king – King James VI of Scotland…… He was the first monarch to rule both countries and the first to call himself ‘King of Great Britain’…and James was married to Anne of Denmark – a Lutheran and a direct descendant of the Viking Kings – the oldest monarchy in Europe – global seafarers…..also at this time James I authorised the translation of the King James Bible…and by 1604 England and Spain make peace, whilst Spain and the Netherlands agree to an armistice

So…then…. in 1605 the ‘Gunpowder Plot’ was hatched…Guy Fawkes, and his Catholic friends, tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament, but were captured before they could do so…and at this same time, the King of Spain, along with the Pope had sent a Spanish Captain Pedro Fernandez de Quiros orders and resources to sail to the Great Southern Land, via South America……

So the Dutch set out for the Great southern land and on 26 February 1606, the made landfall near the modern town of Weipa and the Pennefather River, but were promptly attacked by the original people… the Dutch Captain, Janszoon, then proceeded down the coast for some 350 km. He stopped in some places, but was met by ‘hostile natives’ and some of his men were killed. At the final place, he initially had friendly relations with the natives, but after he forced them to hunt for him and appropriated some of their women, violence broke out and there were many deaths on both sides. These events are recorded in Aboriginal oral history that has come down to the present day…..Here Janszoon decided to turn back, the place later being called Cape Keerweer – Dutch for “turnabout”.….

Meanwhile, the Spanish [Portuguese] appeared to sail to South America…then sailed off [unnoticed] and claimed the Australian east coast – establishing a colony in Gladstone Queensland and travel along the east coast to the lower latitudes to chart – and they too experienced reprisals from the ancestral original peoples…….but they did name the continent as Terre Australe Du S Espirit….and they left other artifacts

Discovery: An image of what is thought to be a kangaroo on a 16th century Processional could lend weight to the theory the Portuguese were the first explorers in Australia. Photo: Debbie Cuthbertson

….”A tiny drawing of a kangaroo curled in the letters of a 16th century Portuguese manuscript could rewrite Australian history.

The document, acquired by Les Enluminures Gallery in New York, shows a carefully-drawn sketch of kangaroo (know as a ”canguru” in Portuguese) nestled in its text and is dated between 1580 and 1620. It has led researchers to believe images of the marsupial were already being circulated by the time the Dutch ship Duyfken – long thought to have been the first European vessel to visit Australia – landed in 1606.

The pocket-sized manuscript, known as a Processional, contains text and music for a liturgical procession and is inscribed with the name Caterina de Carvalho, believed to be a nun from Caldas da Rainha in western Portugal….”…..Charli Newton 16th Jan 2014 – Sydney Morning Herald

Also….See my previous post for the transcripts of de Quiros… https://stellawheildon.com/2014/09/03/east-coast-of-australia-colonised-over-400-years-ago-164-years-before-cook/

So….The entire modern world has been totally indoctrinated to believe that Australia was discovered in 1770 by Captain Cook….whole Libraries are filled with books espousing this as gospel truth – right around the planet….but of course, it isn’t – it’s a cartographic sleight of hand….you see the maps got changed by the conquerors….it was the same old pattern of divide and conquer and geospatial alteration….and Australia, often noted as being a nation of sheep with a “she’ll be right mate” attitude, forgot to remember the truth, let alone question it…..so, how did the British wipe out 164 years of pre-crown Australian occupation…and fool the world for 160years

Well….for a start – it’s the era of SLAVERY….and there are many twists and turns to a good story…but to tell it straight we need to stick to the timeline……so, after the Great South Land, Terre Australe Du S Espirit was colonised in 1606…what then?….

By 1625 James I second son Charles was crowned King of England and he was married to Maria of France….Charles fought against Parliament and caused a civil war and as a result got himself executed on 30th Jan 1649…..

Now, the English Civil War had begun in 1642 when Charles, seeing his rights as King slashed by the parliament, stormed the Palace of Westminster to have five members of parliament arrested for treason…but all the politicians escaped on him…and, as a result the civil war between the Roundheads [supporters of Parliament] and the Cavaliers [supporters of the King] commenced….The Civil War led to the trial and execution of Charles I, the exile of his son Charles II, and the replacement of the English monarchy with first Commonwealth of England….(1649–1653) and then with a Protectorate (1653–1659), under the personal rule of Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector……thus, England became a republic for eleven years [1649-1660]….and then the Commonwealth was declared on 19th May 1649……

So, It is this Commonwealth [Parliament] , that goes on to re-claimed Terre Australe Du S Espirit – and order the geospatial alteration of the prior 1606 colonisation of the east coast by the Portuguese…..but, it has to kick the Monarchy out first, which it does – and there has not been a Queen (or King) of England since 1707 – just figureheads [constitutional Monarch only] and the whole of the Commonwealth is controlled by the Parliament…thus, age old Marriage Lore and alliances between nations were no longer relevant….Britain and its colonies become totally administrative…kind of the same way that corporate parliament has now operated in Australia since 2001…

Ok…back to the timeline…so after the parliament takes control of the Commonwealth The South Sea Company was formed – in 1711 – supported by Robert Harley as a Tory competitor for the Whig Bank of England……The company was promised a monopoly of all trade to the Spanish colonies in South America in exchange for taking over and consolidating the national debt raised by the War of Spanish Succession – which had occurred from 1701 to 1714 ……google it – its relevant to all this, or you can read about it in one of my books, or subscribe to my newsletter….

Ok, back to the timeline…..The value of this promised trade monopoly was closely tied to the outcome of war…and, the Treaty of Utrecht effectively ended the war in 1713….. The treaty curtailed the scope of trade opportunities for the South Sea Company by confirming Spain’s sovereignty over its new world colonies…..and, it’s important to remember that at this point in His-story SLAVERY is a very real thing in all the countries….and the Southern Hemisphere was where most of the Slave hunting was occurring

Ok…back on the timeline…..so, In 1714 Queen Anne, of England, dies and is succeeded by King George I, first of the Hanoverian dynasty [of the Commonwealth Parliament]….remember, the monarchs have no power by this stage and Parliament has gained total control… so then….in 1715 France fails in an attempt at crowning the ‘Old Pretendner’, James Francis Edward Stuart King, in the Jacobite Rising……and, in 1716 the Disarming Act attempts to secure the peace of the Scottish Highlands…so by 1718The War of the Quadruple Alliance begins against Spain – with Great Britain, France, Austria the Dutch Republic and Savoy opposing King Philip V’s attempt at retaking his Italian possessions which he had lost in the War of the Spanish Succession….

By 1719 there is an attempted Spanish invasion in support of Jacobites – with the fleet sailing for England dispersed by storms, troops land in Scotland, and are defeated at the Battle of Glen Shiel ……..and by 1720 Philip V loses the War of the Quadruple Alliance, renouncing his claims in Italy under the Treaty of the Hague……..This causes Collapse of the South Sea Company and results in a London stock market crash in which the average depreciation in value in stock was some 98%…….everyone is BROKEThe South Sea Company was left with limited options in the slave trade, the interest to be paid by the government on the loan from the South Sea Company, and narrowing trade opportunities in the Spanish colonies in South America…..They need assets….and so….they decide to use people, and trade the people as an asset on the markets….and remember, Slavery is legal then….so, people are deemed goods and chattels, or to put it another way, tradable assets…

So…by the time the 17th century came about, Spain had a glorious century behind and a lot of enemies ahead…and got hammered in war….this was England chance…. the Parliament controlled British Commonwealth decided to go for Terre Australe Du S Espirit – is potential for slaves was vast and it was loaded with geological assets…..and so it is here that the altering of the maps to hide the assets begins…

Cook is dispatched with orders to re-map the east coast….Following colonisation by the British, the geospatial alterations to obliterate the Portuguese cartographic records commences forthwith…and what better way to cover the Portuguese’s pre-crown colonisation than to use the original languages of Australia’s first people…

Major Thomas Mitchell the first surveyor General of NSW

The cover-up really commences when Major Thomas Mitchell the first surveyor General of NSW, under orders from the Crown [controlled by the Parliament] was ordered to establish a claim of proprietorship over the then most distance and elusive parts of the continent….to do on land what Cook had done from the sea…to go out and map and NAME all the major geographical features….

Mapping and naming were the prerequisite functions, before the action of tilling the soil, for the British to legally claim the continent. And so Mitchell went out to map and name and thus take legal possession of the continent of Australia for the Parliament.

The crown gave explicate orders for the Aboriginal names to be used…it did this for a very important legal reason…..to wipe out the Spanish [Portuguese] tenure…. Using the Aboriginal names…the British could prove their legal tenure over the lands

As Mitchell stated…..

“The great convenience in using native names is obvious…so long as any of the Aborigines can be found in the neighbourhood…future travellers may verify my map. Whereas new names are of no use in this respect…..”…..

And it is this ‘diabolical cover-up’ that is the critical missing link of what actually occurred in global His-story….and the tradgedy is that, due to Native Title being achieved in 2001, it still occurs to this day…..you see, they have to change the geospatial records [maps, shire boundaries and geographical names] again, because the Aboriginal languages they used to cover-up the Spanish tenure in the first instance, now provide the evidence of the original peoples ancestral estates….how’s that for ironic….or karma

The Commonwealths pattern of geospatial alteration has been enacted in the ancestral lands of the Yoocum Yoocum, of which the Ngarakbal and Githabal are ancestrally and inextricably linked…..it was the original name of the most eastern ‘cultural bloc’…it included the Yugambeh [Jukambe] the Northwest, around Ipswich and as far south as Canungra and Beadesert and east as far as Oxley…..Githabul [Kitabal] to the west – including Main Range volcano…..Widjabal [Wadjie] to the South, south west – who include the Bundjalung Tribe [proper]…not Nation, but Tribe …..And; Ngarakwal [jergarbal] to the east – to the ‘boorgoor’ [the sea]

The “Yoocum-Yoocum dialect which extended from the Logan River south to midway between the Clarence and the Belinger River, and all New England from Armidale to near Warwick, whence it was joined by the Wacca-Wacca of the Darling Downs, the dialect which came down the north side of the Brisbane River to the sea and Toorbul Point and down the Burnett to the sea at Bundaberg”..Metson 1923……

But the Commonwealths administration sliced the Yoocum Yoocum moiety up [quiet deliberately] using their classic geospatial alteration patterns when they gazetted the New South Wales/Queensland border….Their administrative headquarters was in Armidale in the times of legalised Slavery….and so, they decided to re-classify the Yoocum Yoocum lands that now were known as New South Wales to Bundjalung…and the Queensland remnant became Yugambeh…..so, by the simple stoke of an administrative pen, they have caused all manner of trouble, strife and suffering for the ancestral descendants ever since……

Mucky Divorces…Religious Cults…Slavery and Fraud with altering the maps to hide the assets……and now they are trying it again….what a tangled web…

Anyway…here’s nice cultural note to finish on…..its a recording of Aunty Millie Boyd [nee Williams] explaining the ancestral Marriage lore’s of the Eelemarni to Howard Creamer as part of the National Parks Aboriginal Site surveys of 1977….The Lore she is explaining comes from the Yoocum Yoocum epoch, so you will hear her talking about Bundjalung [as being one of the tribes of Widjabil] as a marriage clan of the Githabal, Ngarakbal and Yugambeh of up Southport way, the Northern Gold Coast in Queensland….she is talking about sites and lore pre-invasion and how they bind us all to country thru the sacred waters…

Marriage Lore – ‘Skin’ Lore is sacred – interwoven to the Rainbow Serpent [water lore] and the Seven Sisters – the Sky-Heroes and all the other Bootheram…..

In order to survive we have to drop the crap and move past the divide and conquer patterns and come back together…its time….

If you would like know more then check out the archives on my website stellawheildon.com….and to receive more of my posts then subscribe to my newsletter [it’s free]…and they will be automatically sent to your email…..Hoo Roo

The Ngarakbal Githabal are the ancestral aboriginal people of the most easterly land on the Australian continent….a landscape protected by their ancestral spirits…one such spirit is ‘Ineroogun’ – the Black Dog of Fingal Heads….

The ‘accepted history’ books tell us that the Tweed / Gold Coast environs were established by the colonialists in the mid 1840’s…. this is a sanitised pro-crown ‘His’-storical view…..

The first Cedar getters [wood cutters] were claimed to have arrived by boat in 1844…commencing the indiscriminate ‘clear fell’ denuding of the Gondwana Super Forest from the Brunswick River, just North of Byron Bay and throughout the Tweed Caldera…However the oral traditions of the Ngarakbal Githabal indigenous Aboriginal people tell of this lands invasion beginning well before the 1830’s…The first white skinned invaders they say also arrived by sail boat…. but contrary to the contemporary history presented by government, the traditional Aboriginal people – the Ngarakbal Githabal- tell of a prior arrival of the Spanish in the 1500’s coming to Byron Bay and Fingal Heads…All pre-crown arrival has been eradicated from the authorised historical records… a prior arrival in Australia would nullify the Crowns claim of Terra Nullus as unoccupied lands….and this is not a popular political option…

Anyway, over one hundred years after the Portuguese-Spanish arrived, the first Dutchman to get to Australia was Willem Janszoon aka Jansz in 1606…… Not much is known about his early years, other than he was born in 1570, but what we do know is that he served the Dutch East India Company (VOC), which was a chartered company established in 1602 to carry out colonial activities in Asia……. In 1603, he became captain of the Duyfken, which means ‘Little Dove’, and it was aboard this ship that he first sighted Australia while searching for outlets of trade near New Guinea…… Once he crossed the Arafura Sea, he travelled west and landed on the western coast of Cape York just near Weipa…possibly, following charts that had been captured from the Spanish

Jansz started to chart the area, thinking that the land was still New Guinea, but after finding nothing but swampy land and violent encounters with Aborigines, he decided to throw in the towel and return to Indonesia…..He called ‘his’ new found land ‘Nieu Zeland’, but the name didn’t stick and was used by Abel Tasman about 40 years later for New Zealand…which is located off the eastern coast of Australia.mmmmm……..Now, Aboriginal Elders are insistent that two Spanish landings took place in the ancestral coastal lands of the Ngarakbal Githabal people, on the east coast of Australia…One at Byron Bay and another at Fingal Heads…..Both are purported to be Spanish Shipwrecks which occurred at Suffolk Park south of Byron Bay, and on Cook Island, situated just off Fingal Headland

Fingal Headland is a beautiful place…its known as “Mynjung Booning”……… “Mynjung”, which is the Ngarakbal Githabal word for ‘place of’; and “Booning”, which means Echidna …Place of the Echidna…… Fingal’s precise location is Latitude -28.199042, Longitude 153.571315

Separating the Tweed River from the Pacific Ocean, Fingal is a narrow peninsula several kilometres long. It ends at the mouth of the Tweed river and on the opposite bank lies Queensland. . The peninsula north of Fingal village is known as Letitia Spit, a sand spit that has been slowly accreting due mainly to the construction of the river’s southern training wall – from rock quarried from Fingal

Aboriginal associations stretch well back into the dreamtime with anthropologists claiming that the area supported one of the densest nomadic populations to occur anywhere in the world. Skeletal remains of people estimated to have been around seven feet tall have been found on the Peninsula….

In contemporary times Fingal has been referenced as “Pooning”…most notably in the crowns geospatial lands records for LAW, Land and Language are linked…..and the ancestral people understand that for its the same in traditional Lore – Lore, Land and Language are linked – but, the crown chooses to only recognise the name ”P[b]ooning” for Fingal….[the ‘P’ and ‘B’ sounds blurr together when enunciated…]…..

”P[b]ooning” is the Ngarakbal Githabal name for the Echidna, or Australian porcupine…and the word P[b]ooning is attributed to Fingal Headland because of the rock formations that occur on the headland…. Spectacular basalt columns that resemble the spines of an echidna, and, the ancestral Ngarakbal Githabal people believe that the spirit of the echidna inhabits these headlands…Burleigh Heads located to the north also has similar formations and is also traditionally referred to as being a “Mynjung” [Place of] “P[b]ooning” to the Ngarakbal Githabal…and several other sites that this rock formation occurs in are too.

Anyway……There used to be a large cave at Fingal, but it was blown up to form the break-walls of the Tweed River ….. For the Ngarakbal Githabal the cave site is the ‘dreaming home’ of a protective [supernatural] hairy man said to abide in that cave on Fingal Head and also a giant black dog whose story is linked to the creation of the McPherson Range…but the crown chooses NOT to recognise these ancestral Lores or that the Ngarakbal Githabal totemic ancestral name for Fingal is ‘Inneroogun’ – the Black Dog…..said to now roam the area, homeless….since the Cave was destroyed

The columnar basalt lava flow at Fingal Headland extends underwater to Cook Island (named after Lieutenant James Cook who explored the east coast of Australia in 1770)…… The lava is thought to have come from the prehistoric Tweed Volcano and is known as “Lismore Basalt”; predominantly tholeiitic with occasional alkaline types…….. This unit is stratigraphically equivalent to the Beechmount Basalt in Queensland – west of the Lamington Plateau….which is also refered to by the Ngarakbal Githabal as being a “Mynjung” [Place of] “P[b]ooning”……

Now,…I need to include all this historical and geological stuff in order to explain how the Ngarakbal Githabal Bootheram Lore, Land and Language are linked, to geospatial lands records….and thus, land tenure.

The jointing, clearly evident at Fingal Head is caused by contraction: as lava cools from the outside toward the centre, shrinkage cracks develop, usually forming hexagonal patterns (the shape of the columns is attributed to tensional stress). These columns are vertical because the lava cools from top to bottom when the flow of lava is horizontal

Just before the turn of the century, the Department of Public Works blasted and quarried the massive basalt caves of Fingal Head….and in the process they desecrated the ‘djuribil’ [sacred site] of the Ngarakbal Githabal……. During the1950’s and 60’s sand miners cleared and destroyed not only most of the littoral rainforest which blanketed Letitia Spit but also numerous burial sites, including at least one of the former massacre sites.

All of this destruction occurred during the crown occupation process when the ancestral peoples were being systematically relocated to policed reserves…moving them further and further from their ancestral lands….and due to their legal status as being Flora and Fauna up until the success of the Civil Rights ratification in1967, the blood-line to country descendants of the ancestral people of Fingal have remained dispossessed….however, their Bootheram [Dreaming] Lore survived and was even used to save the Fingal area from massive development…which I’m getting too…

Fingal has historically been coveted as a beachside development site since early occupation but has always managed to remain protected…This protection was largely because of the Ngarakbal Githabal Aboriginal recording the totemic significance of the area and having their language embedded into the geospatial lands records by the crowns first Surveyor’s under order of the old Queen, Victoria.. …Lore Land and Language are linked, so the surveyors used Ngarakbal Githabal language on the original maps…..but, since the advent of Native Title in Australia, the crown is none too happy that the ancestral dialects of the ancestral people are on the geospatial records [the maps]…seemingly because the language attribution [of Ngarakbal Githabal] is the evidentiary material required to claim Native Title ….so, it’s much simpler for them to reclassify it to Bundjalung…change the language classification changes the tenure….it’s an old formula applied globally….

Anyway…back to Fingal…..Throughout the seventies the residential community of Fingal continued to make land claims over Letitia Spit despite the fact that they had no legislative basis on which to rely….. None of these claims were successful [ the residential community not being of the ancestral bloodline of Ngarakbal Githabal country]…Then, after the introduction of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act in 1983, the residential community linked together with other local groups to form the Tweed Byron Local Aboriginal Land Council and immediately lodged new claims over the Spit as well as other pieces of Crown land at Fingal……as a government entity the Aboriginal Lands Council were able to circumvent the non-bloodline prerequisite – write new laws that enabled development …So, In 1986, the Aboriginal lands Council and the Department of Lands negotiated ‘a deal’ in respect of the Spit……The residential community agreed to withdraw all but a small portion of their original claim in return for the Department instituting a Plan of Management over the remainder, aimed at ensuring the land’s protection for future public use….To their credit, the Local Aboriginal Land Council went to some expense in preparing its submission on the Plan of Management…… However, once the claim was withdrawn the Department refused to proceed, and instead commenced researching potential development options…..Of note is that over the subsequent decades several fresh land claims have been made, and like the initial claims, none of which have included the Ngarakbal Githabal…and; subsequently, none of the claims were successful…..since then, the geospatial records linguistic attributions have seemingly been stealthily and steadily changed to Bundjalung….

Developers, Ocean Blue Club Resorts Pty. Ltd., posed the first big threat to Fingal They negotiated ‘a deal’ with ‘the department’….planned to build an international hotel on an important dreaming site and remnant littoral rainforest, a luxury marina on a protected wetland area, and a 400 townhouse /condominium complex in place of the existing village. Both the hotel and marina site were Crown Land and zoned as either public open space or for environmental protection….. At the same time, the Public Works Department commenced a feasibility study into the possibility of cutting a new entrance to the Tweed River through Letitia Spit to make a “Super Harbour”…. If approved, the Department intended to pay for the construction work by selling the remainder of the Spit to private developers…… One firm, Adco Constructions Pty Ltd expressed interest in acquiring the land and put forward proposals for around one billion dollars’ worth of tourist and residential developments….. Such intensive development was considered necessary to absorb the sixty million dollar cost of river works.

In order to prevent development of their ancestral djurebil [sacred site] the Aboriginal Lands Council contacted the Ngarakbal Githabal knowledge holders for help…they needed the ancestral Bootheram Lore to save Fingal…..

Now;….The first pro-aboriginal recordings of the Aboriginal significance of the area were made in 1950’s by Mildred Norledge from Kyogle – endorsed by Professor Elkin…She recorded the Ngarakbal Githabal Bootheram from Elders such as Mr James Morgan; Dyraaba Tribe – west of Lamington Plateau…and Mr. Joe Coolhum; Mebbini Tribe – Tweed Heads…These two gentlemen had spoken about their ancestral custodial Lore as their intrinsic contribution to the Civil Rights Campaigns to free their people from the crowns ‘non-human’ status…..They are two more of the Ngarakbal Githabal ancestor Heroes who showed the crown, through their Bootheram, that they did indeed have their own cultural ‘religion, and did not deserve to be legally classified as Flora and Fauna…

The next wave of recordings commenced in the late 1970’s by Anthropologist Howard Creamer for the National Parks and Wildlife Service Aboriginal Site Survey Team…Howard was instructed to identify ancestral knowledge holders within the community…one of the Cultural Elders whom he interviewed was Mrs Milli Boyd of Woodenbong, who was the daughter of Mrs Charlotte Williams [nee Brown] as part of the governments Aboriginal Site Survey Team of National Parks and Wildlife Services…….This information was then used to obtain further interviews of Mrs Milli Boyd [nee Williams]….principally Dr. Margaret Gummow [building upon the work of Anthropologist, Howard Creamer and Linguist, Margaret Sharpe]….This cultural evidence was then used by the Tweed Byron Aboriginal Lands Council to launch legal action, and a subsequent corruption investigation, in regards development at Fingal Heads…

And these are the cases in which the Ngarakbal Githabal ancestral cultural information was used….Tweed Byron Local Aboriginal Land Council v The Minister Administering the Crown Lands (Consolidation) Act and the Western Lands Act & Ors [1990] NSWLEC 67 (19 June 1990)…and TWEED BYRON LOCAL ABORIGINAL LAND COUNCIL v. THE MINISTER ADMINISTERING THE CROWN LANDS ACT [1995] NSWLEC 220 (14 December 1995)…… “By Notice of Motion filed in Court on 23 October 1995, the Tweed Shire Council seeks to be joined in pending Class 3 proceedings involving a number of land claims made by the Applicant pursuant to the Aboriginal Lands Rights Act 1983 (the Act) at various times between 4 January 1988 and 27 March 1992, in respect of various parcels of land having an aggregated area of some 300 hectares situate on the coast line at Fingal in the Shire of Tweed near the New South Wales-Queensland border”…..

……“The Independent Commission against Corruption [ICAC] has yet to release its report and has so far made no findings, but the evidence presented to it has graced the front pages of the metropolitan newspapers for months. Evidence before ICAC revealed that Ocean Blue had paid large secret donations to both the Labor and National parties at times when, as the respective Governments of the day, they were considering Ocean Blue’s application for Crown land at Fingal. The Administrator of the Tweed Byron Local Aboriginal Land Council alleged that an officer of Ocean Blue had attempted to bribe him into furthering the company’s interests. Lawyers from the Department of Lands claimed that they were misled in leasing the quarry site to the wrong company and both Wal Murray and Ian Causley declared that, had they known what they do now about Ocean Blue, they would have refused to deal with them. Whether or not the Ministers were in fact aware of the donation is an issue on which the ICAC has still to make a finding”….Andrew Chalk

And it was the Ngarakbal Githabal ancestral cultural information which won the case…..and Lore was recorded in LAW….

…..“To my knowledge, there are four recordings of this [Mt Warning] song in existence, all performed by Boyd. The first was recorded by Howard Creamer of the NPWS as part of a project concerning aboriginal site protection. I recorded the second performance in 1985 in relation to my PhD research on Bundjalung and Gidabal songs [Gummow 1992]. The Linguist Margaret Sharpe recorded the third performance in 1989 in connection with a project funded by Aboriginal Legal Aid concerning the environmental impact of land and land rights at Fingal Head. The Fourth was recorded on video in the early 1980’s by Lorraine Mafi Williams. In an attempt to preserve traditional material, Mafi-Williams produced the film Eelarmarni [sic] in 1988, which featured Boyd explaining some of the mythology and singing several songs from the area.”…[Gummow;1985;7A Barwick-Marett-Tuntill 1995:121-131; Tweed Byron Aboriginal lands Council v Tweed Shire Council v the Minister for Crown Lands; and the ICAC INVESTIGATION into North Coast Land Development ]

The following information is based on recordings made in 1989 by Sharpe, speaking with Mrs Milli Boyd [nee Williams] who had learnt the Ngarakbal Githabal Bootheram Lore’s from her Elders… It comprises part of the mythology of the area [Sharpe 1989].

Mount Warning is the shape of a Turkey’s head, and according to Aboriginal people in the area a spirit being called Wollumbin, a wild turkey, lives inside the mountain. Wollumbin owned two dogs, one male and one female, which are associated with Mount Warning and Fingal Head…..One day the dogs were chasing a kangaroo along a ridge. They chased him from Fingal Heads over to Boonah near Beaudesert in Queensland. They eventually came to water and the dogs drank than lay on the bank. Two young girls from a nearby camp came to get water, saw the dogs, and went back to the camp to bring more people down to the river. After spearing the two dogs, they put them on a pole and began cooking them over a fire…….Wollumbin had followed the dogs and knew they had been killed. He flew down onto the flat where the dogs were being cooked and caused a wild storm. The people left to find shelter from the storm. Wollumbin took the dogs off the fire, wrapped them in bark and carried them back to Mount Warning. As he flew across the country, parts of the dogs’ bodies dropped onto the ground below and formed part of the landscape. He went back to Mt Warning and placed the dog’s bones in the water. One dog was placed in the Tweed River near Mt Warning and the other was placed at Fingal Head. It is believed that their spirits protect the Ngarakbal Githabal people in this area from strangers…..Today, at the Tweed River, Ngarakbal Githabal people can hear the dogs bones creaking….

The two Ngarakbal Githabal gentlemen, Mr. Joe Coolham; Mebbini Tribe – Tweed Heads and Mr James Moran; Dyraaba Tribe, told their ancestral Bootheram Lore respectively……. of the Two Dogs, Burrajahee and Ineroogun…. and DHUNGURA NGARIAN which in Ngarakbal Githabal is the name of the Pelican Dancing Ground…. Bootheram Lore must never been changed…it cannot be transferred or claimed by another….for it tells the Lore of their ancestral estate, and within it, embodies traditional morals and values for the people to follow…

The first Lore is “DON’T BE GREEDY”…the story of Burrajahee and Ineroogun teaches that Lore….. To claim or steal a Lore opens it up to corruption and contamination…and, unsurprisingly, that is exactly what unfolded………..

……”As always there is a good deal more to the story. The best parts – the intrigue and maneuvering, the anguish and joy, and above all the people – are most wisely kept for late nights around a fire on Dreamtime Beach, where, well out of earshot of the defamation lawyers, a group will be sitting waiting for the snapper to bite. They will be remembering and they will be laughing, because in 1989 they all did something which they didn’t really think was possible….”…..Andrew Chalk – in regards to the Aboriginal Lands Council court case….

To this date the Ngarakbal Githabal descendants have never been recognized or included in the governance of their ancestral estate by the crown systems….Their culture continues to be appropriated and twisted by those who do not understand the Bootheram and its teachings…the ignorance of the current system thrives on greed, but, the ancestral ‘djurebil’ protection of the Black Dog is indelible, and it’s been written into LAW….

If you would like to read Joe Calhum’s Bootheram of the Two Dogs – you will find it on my website at this address….and if you would like to receive more of these blogs then subscribe to my newsletter [its free] and you will automatically receive them in your email…..Hoo Roo

The ‘Song of the Vine’….The Battle of Wollumbin.

As you drive out of the regional town of Murwillumbah – 30 km from Byron Bay on the most eastern point of Australia on route to Mt Warning/Wollumbin- you cross a bridge at the junction of two rivers…. To the uninitiated of the local Aboriginal Bootheram [Dreaming], this bridge is just a blip on the map with lovely scenic vistas….but to the ancestral peoples, the Ngarakbal Githabal, this is a site of great spiritual and historical significance.

Byangum is the meeting place of the incoming [Salt] & outgoing [Fresh] waters systems, and it is here at Byangum that the river splits into the South & Main arms of the Tweed Valley Caldera and encircles and protects the central sacred complex of Wollumbin…Water is sacred to the people and has significant meaning within their ‘Skin Lore’ kinship systems. Its sacredness permeates all….It comes from the ancient Lore of the Rainbow Serpent…The Ngarakbal Githabal are descendants of the ancestral Carpet-snake clans of the Feathered Serpent Traditions of Australia…

Byangum was mapped as the original settlement for the area but was abandoned and the site of the town was moved further down river

Byangum was the natural Tidal Limit before the construction of the Bray Park weir a few kilometers down river in the 1960’s….Crown surveyor, Alan Cunningham had sailed his surveying vessel up to Byangum, in 1828 to “chart the interior in order to find a suitable fresh water site for the crown to establish a settlement”…A settlement was established and mapped for future development, but later abandoned, and the town now known as Murwillumbah was relocated and established several miles downriver.

The Ngarakbal Githabal traditional name for the place Byangum is ‘Ngungumth’, but Byangum was the nearest the white man could get to pronouncing it…and for them, in accordance with tradition, lore and custom, this place is also the name of the tribal custodian of the djurebil [sacred site] that is located there ….and a custodian of a djurebil has important responsibilities to their site…they MUST protect it…Custodian Rights and Responsibilities are never self-professed. They are inherited thru the kinship ‘Skin’ totemic descent of the Lore, Language and Land that the djurebil is located in…This occurs throughout the continent…

As you drive across the bridge at Ngungumth [Byangum] above it is a Sphinx-like Mountain…This mountains traditional name was ‘Moolumbah’….and to the Ngarakbal and Githabal it is, traditionally, the face of a significant Buloogan or Warrior/Sage who faces to the East’, towards the rising sun…

Buloogan is a descriptive title. It is not the name of the Warrior Sage ….This Buloogan has several names – Burrigan or Durrigan or Durramulan are just some of ‘his’ names…. and there are other mountains named after him as he ‘walks’ through the landscape…and He has many Bootheram [Dreaming Lores] about his journeys… He teaches Lore and values to the people, and as he walks he sings, and he also carries a long vine[plant]…He is a powerful ‘Weeun’ [clever fella/spirit ancestor] his songs create and his vine makes the land….His story is an important facet of the Bootheram [Dreaming] which links to all the other ancestral Creation Spirits journeys…and in each respective country a custodian is responsible for ‘His’ djurebil in accordance with the Lore, Language and Land its located….each custodian holds the respective songs and ceremonies of the Buloogan’s journey…and together [each portion in each ‘country’ combine] to make the ‘songline’…

Buloogan travels all over the land…His name changes with every new ‘country’ he enters, with every language that fills the ancient continent of Australia…..In this portion of his many journeys He is traveling from the coast [Byron Bay-Brunswick] to Byangum, where he faces east towards the rising sky….This place is in Ngarakbal ‘country’, in the Wollumbin volcano, and then, He travels inland to the Githabal volcano…and then on- on his many journeys through the respective countries….all the while singing and teaching as he travels…He is a Culture Hero….a Sky Ancestor Hero, from the Dreamtime – Bootheram….from the Feathered Serpent Traditions

He has many mountains and planes…The land tells us his story..The land IS his story, and so too does the night sky….In the Ngarakbal portion of his journey one of his mountains was gazetted as Hatton’s Bluff by the crown – named for the Wollumbin Post Office Master, Mr. Hatton of Byangum Village in the Wollumbin Parish – the site the crown had originally selected as a suitable location to build the town of Murwillumbah, which was the nearest the white man could get to pronouncing the ancestral dialect name of Moolumbah….It’s a beautiful place in the foothills of Mount Warning/Wollumbin…. A significant location to the ancestral peoples Lore, as given to them by the Sky Ancestors….Junction of two rivers encircling the central djurebil… ‘Meeting place of the waters’…Salt and Fresh…It is also the site of a battle between Ngarakbal warriors and invading settlers…The ‘last stand’ of resistance against the guns to uphold the traditions of the ancestor, Buloogan’s ‘djurebil’ from decimation and theft by the colonial invaders.

Some Background History….

By the early 1860’s English Squatters occupied some 3,000 squares miles of the ancestral aboriginal estates from the Macpherson Ranges in the north to the Clarence River in the south…the title ‘Squatter’ is exactly as it implies – an illegal occupant [of owned property]…..They, the Squatters, took the lands by force…Guns verses Spears….Guns won, of course

Around 1862 the first selectors [prospective farmers] who were, according to the crown legally entitled to occupy and later buy freehold land whether it was being occupied by either squatters, ancestral peoples, or not, began to move into the district….so by 1862 the Ngarakbal Githabal lands were under a second wave of siege…the first had been from Moreton Bay Penal Colony days [commencing 1824] but that’s another chapter so I won’t digress…I’ll just say that was the most brutal time of the invasion…

Anyway…..Joshua Bray was a Squatter who arrived in the Ngarakbal ancestral estate in 1863. He had relocated from the Brungle Run, in Tumut, which are the ancestral lands of the Ngarigu people that had been taken by force as part of the invasion process of the crown. Tumut is approx. 1500km south of the Tweed …..

James Bray and his wife Isobella

Joshua brought with him Native Police from the south….The standard formula of the invasion process was simple – set a black man against a black man – give him a uniform, a horse, arm him, pay him with tobacco and alcohol [the currency in those times] and give him right of access to women of the defeated…pillage and rape… an effective ‘tool’ of war against the ancestral people that has been used by the crown throughout its global career….

During the 1860’s large areas had been declared and gazetted as Forest Reserves and had been the domain of Timber getters harvesting the rare rainforest timbers for export back to England…I’m leaving out a whole chunk of information here about the penal colonies and the battles of the ancestral people to hold their lands…but, by 1887 much of the Tweed Richmond had been resumed and gazetted as the Tweed Richmond Gold Fields…now, a lot of people don’t realise that the Native Police force were also responsible for policing the gold fields throughout the east coast colonies – It goes back to the Eureka Stockade days in the Victorian Gold Fields….and as the crown wasn’t [isn’t] in the habit of keeping records, today the government still refuse to recognise any form of battle ever took place at all [which is a fallacy] ….According to the crowns accredited history books they were welcomed into the country and the ancestral people happily gave them all their lands and peaceful relocated to Reserves…mmmmm.

Anyway, Joshua Bray was the first Police Magistrate in Ngarakbal ‘country’ [arriving 1863] and commander of the Native Police force – He established the Kynnumboon Post Office [whilst a ‘squatter’] – He was a Justice of the Peace, the Coroner, the Gold Mining Warden, and, after his brother James left the district for another appointment, Joshua also became the Crown Land Agent….He had guns and crown instructions…basically it was, take the Ngarakbal lands and prepare a settlement for first settler selector arrivals and then sell the land to them for the crown…and presumably, destroy all records of battles, then sit back and take his place as a founding father of the Tweed confident that His-story would look after him….

Before invasion the lush landscape of the Ngarakbal Githabal supported several thousand people in the ancestral tribes….each tribe was a family clan…and it had been their home for thousands and thousands of years…

In 1882 the newly formed Aborigines Protection Board – facilitated by the police- conducted a census of Aboriginal people in NSW…….”On the Tweed River a population of one hundred and nine Aboriginal people is stated in the Aborigines Protection Board Report – these people are divided into two classifications with 97 Aboriginal, [in subsequent census identified as ‘full-bloods’], and 12 half-castes”. [Reibe 2001:52]

The 1885-86 records of Joshua Bray’s census team show 90 adults and 52 children for Tweed & Brunswick & Grafton areas….

By 1886 The NSW Aborigines Protection Board Report shows NONE in Tweed, with only two adults at Ballina and two adults in Lismore, and a state decrease of 146 males, 63 females and 260 children…total of 469 full blood deaths in one year…..

Many epic battles had been fought between the crown invaders and the Ngarakbal between first contact and 1890 – and these are in the oral traditions still …That the crown stealthily didn’t keep the records of the slaughters is classic tactical His-story sanitisation, and by 1887 most of the surviving Ngarakbal people had been placed into the Brunswick Reserve at Byron bay – Administrated by the police under the dubious title of the Aborigines Protection Board… From this reserve the survivors were systematically relocated out of their ancestral area into Barambah settlement in SE Qld…A few remnant survivors had found survival amongst the first White settlers, and some had gainful employment as postal workers, which afforded a small level of liberty to remain in their ancestral land, and the ability to move between settlements established by the invaders…and one of those postal workers was a Ngarakbal man named Johnny Brown…

So…..Let’s review….

In 1866 James Bray left Tumut … He and his family travel to the Tweed. For his ‘special services’, as a ‘Special Constable’, James received the appointment of Crown Land Agent at the Tweed and soon afterwards was also appointed Clerk of Petty Sessions. Whilst he was building a house at Dunbible Creek [near Stokers Siding- onroute to Byangum] his family stayed at Coolamon with the Gray’s [now Murwillumbah – the relocated settlement] …Whilst still at Dunbible he selected 300 acres of land across the creek and facing the Tweed River in the name of his daughter Lucy….. As Government Land Agent he could not select in his own name…..This land was what is now Byangum, or Ngungumth, a djurebil, and traditionally the place of a significant Buloogan or Warrior/Sage who faces to the East’, towards the rising sun…who sings the landscape and carries a vine….and it was also the crowns first choice of a settlement, beneath ‘Moolumbah’…

Well…imagine how outraged any ancestral person would be about such a significant site being stolen…imagine if your property was stolen…would you fight?…well the Ngarakbal fought…as depleted as they were, with all their kin incarcerated in Reserves…the remaining small remnant in the ancestral lands rallied a resistance to hold their Lore djurebil site of the Baloogun…and as fate would have it, despite crown orders to destroy all records of battles, James Bray did have at least one recorded instance of this altercation with the ancestral Aboriginal people…

It was Sunday September 16th 1866, just a few months after Joshua Bray’s arrival in Ngarakbal lands .

“Blacks away all day until late in the evening when they returned I got Bony & Jimmy to accompany me to Coolamon – to put my horses over by high tide on Monday morning. When I got over H.Clarke said my place was not safe as the Tyalgum Blacks had left their Gins up there and that meant mischief. So I had a cup of tea at half past seven p.m. and got ready to return at once accompanied by Clarke. When we got to the camp the Blacks immediately ran away & swam the river….We then made all haste to Skinners and made our way through the brush on the middle arm. We succeeded ‘Thank God’ in reaching the boat before the Blacks – made our way home to Dunbible and surprised the camp – making Wollumbin Johnny prisoner -& to our surprise discovered next morning that they had planted in the scrub in close proximity to the main camp – the following grim warriors – Jacky Bundash- Big Jimmy – Jimmy Kelly or Scrammy Kelly – Wigam – Monday – Big Billy – Dickin – Charley- [and two or three names unknown] – the names of my own Blacks who were implicated in the plot were Jacky Merrylegs – Bony- Pointer- Jimmy Crow- Jimmy or Talgemma- Bob & Wallumbin Johnny.

I kept Wallumbin chained up until Monday morning and then threatened to shoot him – he then revealed a portion of the plot, that they intended murder but it was a black to be the victim – so I let him go- tho’ I was convinced that he was telling a lie – but I had no proof against him” ….James Bray

By 1879 there were six appointed Magistrates to operate the Police Districts of Cudgen; Murwillumbah; Tweed and Brunswick…….They were Joshua Bray, Thomas Robinson, W.Hindmarsh, George Nixon, Frank Nixon and James Pringle…….At this time the Tweed District included Byron shire

James Rowland, pictured, left, with ‘his’ Aborigines was a half-brother of Joshua & James Bray. Rowland also selected his lands at Byangum on the pathway from Brunswick . He was enumerator of the Aboriginal Census for Brunswick in 1871 – The number James Rowland registered was 70 [Ngarakbal Githabal descendants] …James Bray in a letter to the Register General wrote

..”He has to take a guide [black] and go across the mountains, a great part of the distance being dense scrub through which they must cut their road…”… he used a guide to get to Byangum, and hence the name Rowlands Creek, at UKI today, near Mt Warning on route to Byangum – The guide following an ancient pathway of the Sky Ancestor Baloogan – Burrigan, Durramulan or Durrigan, the Warrior Sage who carried a vine and taught the people Lore…

Because of his resistance Johnny Brown was relocated to the Brunswick Reserve. His descendants had already been incarcerated there. Because of his crimes against the crown, they sent him north to Purga Reserve, and then on to Barambah Labour Camp in south east qld…from there he was sent east to the policed labour camps on the Sunshine Coast – 500kms from his family and his ancestral homelands…Johnny Brown – along with his enslaved kinsmen, had rallied to uphold Baloogan’s durebil against all odds…he gave this song to his surviving family….It was related by his Granddaughter, Charlotte, in the 1950,s as her part in the Civil Rights campaigns to recognize Aboriginal people as legally being human, and not Flora and Fauna as the crown had so cruelly classified aboriginal people in those times….He is singing for the loss of his djurebil…His Culture, His Land, His life

The Song of the Vine….related by Charlotte Williams [nee Brown] Gullival tribe – Ngarakbal Githabal Moiety…

“There was a vine whose spirit was a man.

These forest vines’, they were the Spirit peoples vines.

They were not made by men.

And someone cut this vine, and there this man is struggling to be alive.

This is my own grandfathers song.

“I am here”, the songs say’s…”I am this vine”…

“My life is going away from me, from this ground”

“This place, this dust. My ears are ringing”

“Gaungun the spirit woman is making my ears no good”

“My ears are ringing. I’ll never see this world no more”

And one man came along and saw this vine struggling to be alive. He covered it with dust. When I think of my old people, how they would sit down and sing their songs to me, I could cry…”.

Rest assured…despite the best efforts of authoritarian systems Johnny’s descendants survived and so did their Bootheram Lore, just as it has done throughout time….

If you would like more of these posts, then subscribe to my newsletter [it’s free] and you will automatically receive them in your email….Hoo Roo…..

In 1885 surveyor Edward Johnson gave the name Cooloon to the entrance of the Tweed River – an area today known as Tweed Heads/Coolangatta, the “Twin Towns” marking the state border between New South Wales and Queensland on Australia’s east coast.

Cooloon was the Ngarakbal name for the blue fig tree that grew in the area….Cooloon was also the name of the one of the tribes [or family clans] that occupied the area before invasion – today this Ngarakbal family choose to spell their name Calhum [or Calham] and most of them still reside in their ancestral estates on Ngarakbal/Githabal lands.

Many of the ancestral Aboriginal people became known by the English name of the first settlers whom they lived and worked with and many of the geographical place names in Australia today are still Aboriginal words of the local ancestral dialect tribes [families] who traditionally occupy the lands…Cooloon was an English butchering of the name of the tribe – the Culham [family] – who’s ancestral area included Tweed Heads in what is traditionally known as Ngarakbal ‘country’ …During the systematic relocation process of removing ancestral aboriginal peoples from their land, the remnant survivors of the Culham [family] were [eventually] sent to ‘Mulli Mulli’ Aboriginal Station near Woodenbong, which is the ancestral ‘country’ of the Githabal, who are their traditional marriage clan….and lots of Culham descendants reside there today.

Many of the Ngarakbal/Githabal Elders were instrumental in achieving the success of the Aboriginal Civil Rights Campaigns which were ratified by government in 1967, granting aboriginal people legal ‘human’ status instead of the Flora and Fauna classification they had lived under since invasion….The Civil Rights campaign had taken over a decade to achieve…many of the Elders who ‘gave their all’ in that campaign had worked first hand with the crowns surveyors who mapped their ancestral country – so, they knew the Aboriginal names on the maps were very important to show that THEY were the original inhabitants of Australia….This worried the crown greatly, as it threatened their legal tenure to Terra Nullius….So the crowns way of handling this problem was to start the renaming process of the geographical, or geospatial data…Change the maps…..a ‘classic’ administrative process utilised since Roman times.

Flinders Chart 1814 – showing the entire east coast of Australia as New South Wales

Renaming geographical names on maps has been the systematic invasion process of the crown throughout the commonwealth countries….after all that’s how they claimed the Australian east coast from the pre-crown Spanish tenure and then rescinded the Dutch tenure of the Australian western lands…In these contemporary times, in order to retain tenure post-Civil Rights [1967] and then Native Title [1992] they systematically move shire boundaries, or change the names of towns or important geographical features by removing the aboriginal names, or the ancestral dialect those names are attributed too…Cooloon was one of the towns this ‘Roman’ administrative sleight of hand was applied to.

“Cooloon survived as the official name, though rarely used, until 1965, when in that same year the name was officially changed to Tweed Heads by the New South Wales [Geographical] Names Board”….[Keates]

Mt Brown Road – north west over duck creek – Richmond Range NSW

You also find the names of Mountains and significant places in Australia have English names from the surveying day’s too….for example; Mount Brown on the Richmond Range….Mt Brown is an extremely important djurebil [sacred site] from the Creation Bootheram [Dreaming] of the Ngarakbal/Githabal moieties….Mount Brown is where the birds all flew from, in the ‘Dreaming’ [or Bootheram, as the Ngarakbal/Githabal call it] ….and each bird who flew from Mount Brown became the totemic creator of the various ‘Bird Tribes’ [Feathered Serpent Traditions] where each species landed…..This totemic attribution can be seen in the Aboriginal Site Registration of Mount Warning/Wollumbin of which the totemic creator is a Turkey….in the site registration it state’s “Turkey flew from Mount Brown”…and Turkey created the Ngarakbal tribe of Gullival..[see previous post Significance of Mt Warning ].

At the time of the original surveying and mapping the Ngarakbal/Githabal ancestral area was pristine natural rainforest….Beautiful rainforest land, heaven to a Ngarakbal person, but to an Englishman, foreboding…

“The Tweed at that time was practically impenetrable to the settlers travelling overland. Only a barely discernable mailman’s track wound its way through precipitous mountain ridges to the nearest settlement of Casino on the Richmond….Miles of undulation clothed in thick moist rainforest, filled with razor sharp Lawyer Cane [vines ] gouging at the unwary horsemen’s face and arms .Overhead the canopy enclosed the darkness and exuded an ever present odour of decay”…[Keates]

Mount Brown was on the designated Mail Route that ran from Cooloon/Tweed Heads to Casino in the late 1800’s….The tracks were treacherous for English settlers, but they were paradise for the ancestral Ngarakbal peoples….in those times it was common for an Aboriginal man to be given the job of delivering the mail….A local Aboriginal man was accustomed to the terrain of his homeland, and more importantly, he would not be killed as he travelled through his ancestral country, where as a White man would.

Johnny Brown was the English name that first settlers gave to one of the Ngarakbal Aboriginal mailmen and his ‘run’ was from Cooloon [Tweed Heads] to Casino, located on the other side of the Richmond Range…The mail track took in a portion of what is now known as Mount Brown, which is an extremely important djurebil [sacred site] of creation of the Bird Tribes in Ngarakbal/Githabal Lore…It is the Bootheram ‘beginning’ point from where all the birds flew from to make the tribes…..Bootheram is the Ngarakbal/Githabal word for the DREAMING, and, Johnny Brown-Ngarakbal knew his Lore, his Land and his Language, and he also knew the surveyor, Edward Johnson who had mapped Ngarakbal land for the old Queen…

“Between the years 1844 and the arrival of William McGregor and his four boatmen, Henry Brown, Alfred Gray, John Whelan, Willam Parkes and their families in1870 to establish a pilot station at the mouth of the Tweed River, the area remained an enigma and a remote outstation of the fledgling New South Wales colony”…[Keates] .

In the mid 1800’s the old Queen [ Victoria] had given orders to all her surveyor to only use the local Aboriginal names of places on the new maps they were creating….there was a legal reason for this….The Dutch still held three quarters of the continent to the west and had used Dutch words on their maps…and the Portuguese had mapped the East Coast in the 1500’s and had used Spanish words…the Dauphin map of 1536, below, was charted before the discovery of Longitude…

Dauphin map – 1536

The Spanish had been defeated by the French and the maps had been taken into their possession…But those maps were reproductions from ancient Khemit [Egyptian] maps….and so, to claim the ‘Great Southern Land’ Napoleon had to invade Egypt to capture those maps for the French… of note is that Khemit is the original name of Egypt before Roman invaders changed their maps too…and of course England has Roman links…

Napoleon in Egypt 1867

The maps to Banyan [Bird] Land, aka Australia, were held in the Khemit libraries of Alexandria from their long ago expeditions – 4000 years long ago and more – Khemit maps to GOLD MINES – Napoleon needed those maps, or rather to destroy them before anyone else claimed the “Land of the Red Princes”, or, before he could claim it for France….

So, then His-story goes that the English [Roman descendants] declared war on the French against Napoleon, and in due course defeated him and then they had the Khemit maps in their possession again…..The east coast of Australia was ‘up for grabs, well, according to the Roman descendants, the English, that is…

Then, La Perouse from France [who still had copies of the Portuguese maps Napoleon had captured] raced Captain Cook to Tahiti, purportedly in pursuit of mapping the Venus transit so as to define longitude , which is what the ‘accepted’ academic texts tell us…but, the actual reason for this race between La Perouse and Cook was to travel on to claim Australia – but La Perouse arrived three days too late, Cook was already there – and so Cook claimed the east coast for England as instructed by the Queen….

And what of the Egyptian [Khemit] maps?…Well, that’s the story of another English war isn’t it?….actually, there is more, but that too will come to light in the near future from good people whose work in this field is far more qualified to tell of it than I….

It is also of note that Aboriginal men from the east coast Reserves had been sent to fight in the Boer War…after it ended in 1902 the crown left them all in Africa…The Australian Light-horse stress were also abandoned….The crowns excuse for this travesty was so as to prevent possible disease coming back to Australia….The east coast Aboriginal men were classified as Flora and Fauna by the occupying British..This was a perfect opportunity to prevent breeding age Aboriginal men from returning to their ancestral lands….

Anyway, back to Ngarakbal/Githabal country and the His-story of the Australian East Coast invasion…..Well then, the old Queen [Victoria] had been advised by her counsel to use the Aboriginal words of the local ancestral moieties – so her surveyors dutifully befriended the ancestral peoples and garnered their assistance in fulfilling her orders, aboriginal people like Johnny Brown….The reason was that [the crown thought] it a way of proving that they had been there first, and that they could prove this because the ancestral aboriginal ‘tongue’ was on their English maps…In their opinion this would serve as evidence that they discovered Australia’s east coast first – before the Portuguese had, and [if they could ‘capture’ them] also before the Khemit had too….

Pietier Goos East Indies 1690

In other words “Bluff it”, by re-mapping the place and destroying the records of any maps the others had ever created, and if that meant war, then that’s what happened…..Banyan Land [of the Red Princes] was full of Gold and that would fund the wars…

So….That is my version of the crowns invasion in a nutshell…In reality it’s a sad His-story of War and death….conquering and claiming… and it worked for a while, but is rapidly failing…Claiming by Re-naming is one of the crowns fortes…..and I have personally had first-hand experience of this in order to be able to tell this story now….specifically with Mount Warning and it’s geographical renaming as Wollumbin…

Apart from my own research and lobby [to aid the Ngarakbal/Githabal] I have met lots of people around the global village that also have the old maps and amassed mountains of verifiable proof of archaeological sites of the Portuguese and the Khemit/Egyptians in Australia…check out Sonya Vangelders work on the Gosford Glyphs which casts long overdue light onto the Khemit expeditions, which also visited Ngarakbal/Githabal lands…along with Professor Cann’s work on MtDNA which uneqivicably verifies the original ancestral aboriginal people claims that they were here before all of them – 350 thousand years longer – which blitzes the accepted academic benchmark texts that tell us of Aboriginal occupation being only 70,000 years…..

That Australia, the ancestral land of the Bird Tribes [Feathered Serpent Traditions], has been coveted for its mineral wealth for thousands and thousands of years is not surprising news, but that they actually had operating trade agreements with the Dutch, the Portuguese and the Khemit to name a few, is , and thanks to more good peoples works this also is coming to light….

Though attempts have been made to eradicate this important information of prior occupation and trade – like the names and places on the maps being scrubbed out by administration or swept away in the wars – the global village has woken up to just how much ’His-story’ gets corrupted, sanitised and spoon fed to the masses, and what a brutal and unnecessary thing war was….Forgiveness and compassion are something that the whole planet can learn from the Australian Bird Tribes, along with their Bootheram lores of sharing and mindfulness of resources, and most importantly NEVER altering the truth…

Good Lore’s – Ancient Time tested Lore’s – How else can we learn to ‘care for country’, or this planet, and become better human beings if we don’t keep the truth pure…and learn from looking at our past mistakes.

Here’s a beautiful Bootheram from the Ngarakbal/Githabal lore…It is related by Mr Joe Calhum, a survivor who was systematically removed from his ancestral lands of Cooloom [Tweed Heads] to eventually reside at ‘Mulli Mulli’ Aboriginal Station near Woodenbong….He told this Bootheram as his part in the Civil Rights Campaigns to free his people from the suffering of being classified as Flora and Fauna – not human- by the crown…He’s one of the unsung heroes of Australia…an exemplary HUMAN, who ‘held’ [in his turn] the Bootheram Lore [unchanged as Lore decrees] as a true ‘Custodian of the Land’ must….Lamington Plateau is featured in this Bootheram, it’s a chain of remnant volcanic mountains behind Tweed Heads marking the New South Wales/Queensland geographical border….Remember, Bootheram is Metaphorical…it appears a fairy-tale about Dogs and Kangaroos and Humans, but it’s not…it has layers and deep meaning…..See if you can ponder the ‘truth’ in this ancient Lore…..

The Two Dogs – Burrajahnee & Inneeroogun A legend from the Lamington Plateau as told by Joe Calhum [Cooloom] of Woodenbong – pictured above – this story is a Bootheram Lore and must NEVER be changed.

“Where the north-eastern border of NSW & the south-eastern border of Qld meet lies the rugged MacPherson Range, and on this range there is a plateau known to the white man as Lamington Plateau. Many long years ago in the Dreamtime, in a very young world, there lived an old man and his nephew on the Lamington Plateau. The Old man and his nephew had two dogs of which they were very fond.The dogs were named Burrajahnee and Inneroogun.

One day Burrajahnee and Inneroogun saw a kangaroo. They chased it down the side of the plateau. When the old man and his nephew saw the dogs chasing the kangaroo, they called out to them,… “Burrajahnee and Inneroogun, come back to us!”……

The dogs took no notice for they were excited by the chase. Some people from a tribe that lived near the plateau also saw the dogs chasing the kangaroo. When they saw the kangaroo running towards the lagoon, they placed two nets in the pathway. The kangaroo was big and strong. He got through the first net, he got through the second net, jumped into the lagoon and turned into a bunyip; and there he lives to this day.

Burrajahnee and Inneroogun also got through the first net, but they were caught in the second one. The people who had tried to catch the kangroo killed the two dogs, saying to each other “they will serve us as food as well as the Kangaroo. We shall light a fire and cook them”. And this they did.

When the dogs failed to return the old man and nephew were sad, because they knew some evil had befallen them. They went to look for their dogs, and tracked them down the side of the plateau to the place where the fire had been lit, calling out “Burrajahnee and Inneroogun come back to us”. Great was the anger of the old man and his nephew when they found their dogs had been killed and cooked. The old man sent a big cyclone to destroy the people who had killed Burrajahnee and Inneroogun.

The uncle and the nephew picked up the dogs, wrapped them in bark, and carried them reverently back to the plateau. Whenever any part of the dogs, such as a foreleg or foot, fell off as they were being carried back to the plateau the placed was named after it and is known by the same name to this day.

On the way back to the plateau they came to a waterfall. They climbed to the top and sat down and rested placing their burdens on the ground. One of them faced in one direction and the other facing in the opposite direction. There the remains of the two dogs Burrajahnee and Inneroogun were turned into stone.

Those two dogs are still to be seen at the top of the waterfall. One facing in one direction and the other in the opposite direction.

The stone dogs are sacred. No man dares to touch them. To the tribe of people who are descendants of the old man the stone dogs will always be sacred.

That is the story of the two dogs Burrajahnee and Inneroogun, and the part of the plateau were they began to chase the kangaroo is called Goonbundah”…..Joe Calhum/Cooloon

If you would like receive further posts then join my newsletter [its free] and you will automatically get them sent to your email account…also check out Sonya Vangelder’s work on the Egyptian [Khemit] Glyphs and for more info on the Crowns instructions to Capt. Cook check outhttp://www.ancientwisdomoftheancestors.com/crowns-instructions-to –cook which is also Sonya’s website… listed in my links….Hoo Roo

The Ngarakbal and Githabal are the descendants of the ancient ‘Bird Tribes’ of Australia…..They call the dreamtime, ‘Bootheram’….In 1977 Howard Creamer an Anthropologist for Australian National Parks and Wildlife Services recorded many of the significant cultural sites within the Ngarakbal Githabal lands as part of the governments Aboriginal Sites Survey…

The Ngarakbal and Githabal have witnessed many arrivals into their homelands. Some came in peace, others in war… Many cultures from far away lands have come to this beautiful place over the thousands and thousands of generations just as they come today…and with each arrival, or conquest the Yoocum Yoocum have encompassed these event into their ancestral Bootheram [Dreaming Lore] – oral traditions, songs and dances of the historical truths about the events that took place in their ancestral lands…because Bootheram is not only the story of the land and all its biological inhabitants, plants and animals, but also the story of the all the peoples who have ever come to this ancient Volcano….the Abode of the Rainbow Serpent.

The Ngarakbal and Githabal refer to themselves as keepers of the ‘Feathered Serpent Lore traditions’ – The Bird Tribes…Birds are the Feathered Serpents, the descendants of the Goanna [dinosaurs]…and the Ngarakbal and Githabal are the descendants of the Bird Tribes…thus, the Ngarakbal and Githabal are the ancient ancestral moieties of this landscape….They did not come here, they were always here…There lore tells of how they were made here…This ‘knowing’ is held in their Bootheram lore [Dreaming]…..The birds gave them their Lore, their land, and their LANGUAGE….but more on that later

In the meantime, here is the Aboriginal and Anthropological Significance of Mt Warning/Wollumbin – recorded by Howard Creamer for the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service in 1997…..it’s an extract of the transcript of the site registration but I have attached the original site registration…and the original audio file that Howard Creamer gave me…..

Aboriginal and Anthropological Significance of the Site Wollumbin recorded by Howard Creamer, Anthropologist for Australian National Parks and Wildlife Services.

The following information on Wollumbin was recorded by Mrs Milli Boyd [nee Williams] of Woodenbong…see below….She was born at Woodenbong around 1910 and comes from there but her mother and husband were from the Tweed Valley area and she has maintained links there all her life. Woodenbong is in the traditional territory of the Gidabal people, while Wollumbin is in Nerackbal country. There are today very few people who identify as Nerackbal and the Tweed Valley is now perceived by most people as being within the area of the large Bunjalung tribal language group. The following transcript of a tape recording made in December 1977 with Millie Boyd explains the significance of the site:

See they’re three sisters those – there’s Wollumbin, Mebbini, Byorgini that Nimbin Mountain. That‘s my mothers’s mother’s mountain. That’s Byorgini and in the middle that’s Mebbini and Wollumbin in the front, like that, you can see it. That’s Mebbini, that story came from here, from Mt Brown, you know where all the birds got together and spoke their lingo and this big bird came up and frightened them. They was talking Gullyval, Muli, Gidabal. Magpie flew somewhere else. Parrot flew down there to Evans Head, that’s how thee came to be Bundjalung. And the wounded parrot flew back right near Lismore out to Casino, you see a gully there, they reckon the waters blood there, red, where he settled. And Turkey flew back there, wounded. That’s why Mt. Warning got that little bend in his neck. That’s why that National Park, they look after it very well.

Wollumbin, that’s a wild turkey. He flew from Mount Brown to Mount Warning and he stood right on the point and he was wounded on the head with a spear. That’s why there’s a little point there on the top, you take good notice today when we get down there. Yeerin’s there, that’s where the fairies come from. He carried the gold there, right on the point….[Milli sings the song Wollumbin]

Below is the actual Australian National Parks and Wildlife site registration of Wollumbin

and here is the original recording that Creamer made of Mrs Milli Boyd telling him the significance of Wollumbin and associated sites within the Ngarakbal and Githabal areas……”Biorgini”- Blue Knob, Mt Burrell – Wind Spirit….”Mebbini, Momoli” – Lofts Pinnacle -Eaglehawk….and “Wullumban” , Wollumbin – Turkey

This is just one of many audio files made by Howard Creamer that explain how the Birds gave the Ngarakbal Githabal their Language, Lore and Land…I will be uploading more in the future …so stay tuned or subscribe to my newsletter [its free] and you will automatically receive my posts in your email……..Hoo-Roo

Creative journeys abound in Aboriginal Mythology. Two cross the Australian continent & begin from ‘Cugin’ [Cudgen] in the ancestral lands of the Ngarakbal Githabal moieties….

The following Bootheram is called the Fairy Emu Dreaming and is one of several ‘Bootherams [Dreaming Lores] about the totemic journey of the ancestor creator spirits across the land. It was recorded from Charlotte Brown in the 1950’s…….Charlotte Brown was the Ngarakbal wife of Githabal man Euston Williams…

The Fairy Emu Dreaming

…”….A big rock stands in the sea six miles from Byron Bay

A man named Nguthungulli made that rock. Nguthungulli is our Father.

He’s the Father of the whole world.

He’s the man we’ve got to be afraid of.

No matter what we do wrong, or where we do it, He’ll know.

And no man has seen Him.

“….Nguthungulli had a cave in the rock. After he made the rock, he told the four fairy woman, ‘gilarmavell’, to stay there…”.

“….Then he went away from there and walked inland from the coast. He traveled over the mountains with his dog Korung. He had a walking stick, and when he put the stick into the ground He left behind a stone like a basin..”…..

…”As he traveled He left the bean-trees, and He named the different places on His journey. He named Woodenbong [where we are now], Nguthumbung.”

“He went over the range to the head of the Condamine. When he knelt down at the river to drink, He left his handprints there in the stone…”…….

“….Nguthungulli went away out into the desert, towards the sunset. In our language we say that Nguthungulli is away out in the Borrgorr now that means the sea. …”…..

“…The old people knew that the sea was out there. They knew that whichever way the butheram, the story of Nguthungalli went, it was towards the sea, Borrgorr. You can hear the sound of the sea in that word. They had seen then that we were on an island.”……….

“….Nguthungulli has big rocks in the Borrgorr, the sea, where he lives today. Out in the caves in those rocks in the sea, Nguthungulli has four daughters and one son. And his son is called Yar Birrain…”….

Ngarakwal [Yoocum] Totemic Lore as told by Charlotte Williams [nee Brown] of the Ngarakwal Githabal moieties – East Coast Australia……The name Yar Birrain has several meanings , one of which is “First Light”….The summit of this sacred Mountain [known as Mt Warning] is the first land in Australia to receive the dawn rays of ‘Mother Sun’….

The Women of Wollumbin – Part 1

Marlene Boyd – Ngarakbal Gulgan

The crowning centre piece nestled within the beautiful Tweed Valley Caldera of the Australian east coast is a sacred mountain known to all the aboriginal tribes and moieties across this vast land…..

This ancient volcano caldera is geographically the most easterly point of the Australian continent and the summit of the central mountain is topographically the first place the light of mother sun touches the Australian landscape and triggers awake all the ancestral sites across the country. It is a sacred creation place of traditional lore and customary culture that is thousands and thousands of years old. It is also the ancestral home of the Ngarakbal dialect moiety and it’s marriage clan, the Githabal, located to the west – following the pathway of mother sun.

The mountain has many names. One is Wollumbin. A Ngarakbal word for the name of one of the totemic ancestor creation spirits who “made the mountain”, long ago, way back in the dreamtime or the Bootheram, as the Ngarakbal say….For Bootheram is the Ngarakbal word for the dreamtime and Bootheram can NEVER be changed. That is the Lore.

There are many ancestral Lore Bootheram’s for this ancient place. Lores that explain things like the geography, history, hydrology, biology, protocols and the myriads of cycles, to name just a few. These Bootheram Lores were passed down through time unchanged and unchallenged, until colonial invasion.

Recent contemporary post-colonial history tried to teach that the ancient Bootheram Lores and cultural wisdoms of the Ngarakbal no longer existed. Having invested decades utilizing divide and conquer war techniques in the attempt to eradicate the wisdom of the ancients and replace the ancient Lores with their own, the crown failed. For the lore is strong and alive.

So how did this ancient lore wisdom survive?….well, It is Lore protocol to never speak of Lore in any country other than your own ancestral country…and there were many tribal countries before invasion…..and within these countries there are men’s lores and there are women’s lores…..that is the Lore and it is NEVER to be disrespected or changed…the traditional penalty is death.

So I am going to tell you the story of some of the amazing Ngarakbal and Githabal women….the Women of Wollumbin…the “Keepers of the Flame” of the sacred feminine Seven Sisters Lore…descendants of Warriors….Survivors of the 100 year holocaust of invasion…..and how they kept their ancient traditional Lores and customs alive by singing their lifeforce into the cultural embers of their traditional volcano home, as it always has been since the beginning of time.

Marlene Shanker Boyd – 20th April 1945 – 22nd of February 2007.

Marlene Boyd, her ancestors and her family are an intrinsic part of the Tweed Valley landscape, history and of the ancient origine Lore of Australia. A deeply spiritual woman, her life, and her purpose was always one of responsibility to, and struggle for, her traditional matrilineal lore and culture to be given recognition, and through that recognition, survival….despite determined opposition she fought for it’s truth all of her life.

Born on the 20th April 1945; into the Ngarakbal Nganduwal Aboriginal Moiety of the Wollumbin Volcano. Born “In-Country” and schooled at Middle Pocket, Billinudgel, not far from beautiful Byron Bay, Marlene Boyd was the youngest daughter of a traditional skin-lore marriage between a Ngarakbal man Chris Boyd and his Githabal wife Millie.

Marlene came from a long line of warriors. Her Great Great Grandfather was Kippa Tommy Boyd/Andrews who was incarcerated at the Nerang Aboriginal Reserve in South East Queensland, an area which is the northern part of the famous Australian Gold Coast today.

She was the Great Grand Daughter of ‘King’ Billy Andrews of Murwillumbah; though ‘King’ was a title given by the crown and of no traditional relevance to ancestral culture it served to identify the leading elders of the communities and whom could ‘speak’ the Lore on behalf of the tribal moieties remnant surviving peoples.

Through her maternal grandmother, Charlotte Brown, Marlene was a direct blood descendant of Wollumbin Johnny [Brown] of Eungella, or ’Ngungulla’ which was how she pronounced it in her dialect. Ngungulla, it’s lush rain forested ridges and crystal clear rivers lay at the foot of the central sacred mountain. The very heart of the Ngarakbal traditional lands and lore.

Wollumbin Johnny [Brown] was a fierce warrior who rallied to push invading native police forces from the original Murwillumbah settlement which had been established at Byangum, where the two rivers meet. His small resistance army fought the invaders back downriver from the sacred mountain, pushing them to the Cudgen ridge were the police had strategically located their main fort. From this fort a clear view of the caldera and the sea provided a stronghold against the rebel Aboriginal peoples. Fearless warriors who braved the crowns guns, themselves armed only with wooden spears, in one last heroic attempt to stop the relentless occupation of their lands. …’King’ Brown [Wollumbin Johnny] had fought relentlessly against the invading forces but was eventually captured and severely punished. Under the heartless dispersal laws of those times he was systematically relocated away from his traditional country. Sent to a number of police Labour Reserves – enslaved for over 15 years. Two of his relocations included Barambah Labour Camp [now Cherbourgh Aboriginal Reserve], with his last incarceration being at Tin Can Bay Aboriginal Labour Camp in South East Queensland near Gympie. From there he managed to escaped and returned south, traveling over 400km to his ancestral Ngarakwal home. His remains were traditionally tree buried in Eungella.

Marlene Boyd was herself an activist, born into an activist family. A true child of the Aboriginal Human Rights Revolution Campaign’s which commenced in the late 1950’s. She was 15 years old before she was legally classified as a human being by the Crown. Marlene had witnessed her grandparents, Euston Williams and Charlotte Brown struggle tirelessly until successfully achieving Human Rights recognition for their people in 1967. Prior to the referendum of 1967 all Aboriginal people were classified as flora and fauna. They had no legal status as being human being. That abhorrent legislation existed only 48 years ago.

Marlene Boyd and her family are amongst the most highly regarded Aboriginal Lore keepers and Activists ever produced by this country. The Ngarakbal and Githabal images, language, culture and song have been collected and studied by our most noted academics and educational institutions since the 1800’s, and Marlene furthered this work with many of today’s academics and film makers recording her living culture for her children and grandchildren to proudly follow down through time. Unbroken ancient traditional lore and culture.

Marlene’s Githabal Mother, Millie Boyd [nee; Williams], was a most highly regarded and respected East Coast Elder who became known internationally as a tribal ‘Clever Woman’, teaching ancestral culture, lore and custom of her people – she, like her elders before her was an activist – fanning the embers of her culture to survive…a true giantess amongst her people.

Marlene’s Father, Chris Boyd, had been a Labourer in the Tweed. In those pre-human rights recognition day’s Aboriginal people could not leave the reservations unless they had an official police labour work permit. Chris Boyd and his wife Millie managed to obtain labour permits and ‘escaped’ with their children from the suffering and deprivation on the crowded reservations by returning to their ancestral Ngarakbal country. Throughout Marlene’s and her brothers and sisters childhood the family lived and worked in the Tweed. They resided in several police permit locations at Dunbible, Billinudgel, Terranora, and Duranbah, working on seasonal banana, sugar cane and small crop plantations.

The family often visited friends and relations living on what was once Greenbank Island Aboriginal Reserve in the mouth of the Tweed River, to attended Church services there and at Fingal Heads and also at the Bag Church site in South Tweed Heads….Church was the only means of allowing gatherings in those times…..These clever people used the church meetings as a smokescreen to hide them from the authorities ever watching eyes and ears…and all the while they discussed the need for recognition of their status as flora and fauna to be changed…for them to legally be human beings….for their ancestral lore to be respected.

As large numbers within the coastal churches grew secretly campaigning the Human Rights movement , the young Boyd’s would take messages from Greenbank Island Aboriginal Reserve back to their grandparents, Euston and Charlotte, who were leaders amongst the Githabul activists and still living on the crowded Woodenbong Aboriginal Reserve Station to the west…. The young Boyd family regularly travelled [under police permit] this journey to assist their Aboriginal Elders in lobbying for the recognition and rights of their Aboriginal culture and people. This movement was occurring alongside South Sea Islander [blackbirder] descendants of the slaves that the crown had stolen from their island homes. Many of these South Sea Islander peoples were counted amongst the Boyd families closest friends in the Tweed, and together they shared the same struggle to overcome their own loss of connection and enslavement.

The Ngarkbal and Githabal peoples fought, just as their ancestors before them, to keep the embers of their ancient culture and lore alight…they did this by speaking out for the integrity of their ancestral lore to be respected and protected, intact….”talking up culture to save culture”….and never changing the Lore….they walked in truth and eventually they won….in 1967 they were declared human, but they never received possession of their ancestral lands.

Marlene Boyd’s tribal name was ‘Eelemarni’. She inherited the Fairy Emu ‘Bootheram’ Lore of her traditional landscape through her matrilineal lore, linage and kinship decadency, from her Ngarakwal grandmother Charlotte Brown. Like the true culture women before her, Marlene in her turn, held the title ‘Ellemarni’ and its Bootheram that links the two ancient volcano moieties of Ngarakbal and Githabal….

As Keeper of the Ancient Women’s business of Skin Lore, kinship, totem and descent that gives her people their connection to country.

Marlene Boyd was a living embodiment of one of the Seven Sisters. ‘Ellemarni’ was the ‘Gulgan’ (Keeper) of the Seven Sister’s creation lore and sites within her traditional landscape; and as ‘Ellemarni’ Marlene Boyd held the Seven Sisters creation song from the East Coast Volcano ….She was the Mountain, and would sing the first portion of the trans-continental song line of Australia from the point the sun first touched these ancient shores….this was her totemic skin-lore birthright. Like the women who came before her, Marlene was committed to feeding the fire of these ancient traditions despite many attempts to extinguish that flame. As ‘Ellemarni’ she brought the light of renewal and hope into this land for all of us.

Marlene Boyd was a true Lady. Proud of her identity and heritage, she continued to protect and fight to uphold the integrity of her matrilineal moieties ancient traditions and connections unbroken, to the very end of her life. Her sublime strength and determination to keep the women’s Eastern coastal flame alive has inspired people from all over the globe. And many have not hesitated to help her fan the embers of the sacred feminine – and care for country.

Her last film appearance in the film “the Gathering” achieved international recognition and awards. This same film won an award at the Byron Bay film Festival in 2007, just weeks before she passed.

She was a Sister, A Wife, A Mother, An Aunt, A Grand Mother, a Great Grand Mother, A Friend, A confidant, A mentor and A Teacher. But most importantly she was a Warrior for her people.

Marlene continued her mother’s works and her cultural responsibilities, doing business, walking in her truth….Walking Cultural truth…She passed over at 8.15am on the 22nd of February 2007, still fighting for the right of survival of her Ngarakbal culture in this modern post-colonial world…

She was much loved and respected for it.

Marlene is survived by her children and many beautiful Ngarakbal grandchildren and great grandchildren in whom the ancestral Bootheram lore traditions and legacy continue on unbroken…..And every morning, as the fire of mother sun lights the summit of Wollumbin sending out the lifeforce to every site across the land, we will remember her warmth, and nurturing and what she did for all of us….